


A Litany

by chisomo



Category: Stray Kids (Band)
Genre: Angst, Inspired by Poetry, M/M, This one is sad y'all, breaking up, minsung is in here bc i phsyically can't write a fic without them in it apparently
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-24
Updated: 2019-11-24
Packaged: 2021-02-26 05:08:47
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,907
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21548131
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/chisomo/pseuds/chisomo
Summary: "Are you there, sweetheart? Do you know me? Is this microphone live?"alternatively: woojin and chan find each other, love each other, and lose each other.
Relationships: Bang Chan/Kim Woojin, Han Jisung | Han/Lee Minho | Lee Know
Comments: 13
Kudos: 75





	A Litany

**Author's Note:**

> hi. the whole thing with woojin was shitty, and I cope with my emotions by writing…so here’s the product of that. this is also highkey a mess bc I don’t rly do oneshots but whatever! it’s poetic, man! 
> 
> more importantly, this fic is based on a poem by Richard Siken, which I’m linking here: https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/48158/litany-in-which-certain-things-are-crossed-out. It’s my favorite poem in the entire world, so all the credit goes to his genius. 
> 
> Also important: ik the woojin thing has affected a lot of people’s mental health, so please assess your own before reading this fic. there is not a happy ending, and I wrote it to help myself work through my own emotions. if you think reading this will make you feel worse, don’t read it. taking care of yourself is far more important.
> 
> jesus that was long. okay, love y’all (:

_The entire history of human desire takes about seventy minutes to tell._

_Unfortunately, we don’t have that kind of time._

Woojin didn’t want to turn around.

Woojin desperately, _desperately_ wanted to turn around.

Snow spiraled around him, descending upon the Seoul night. It was the bitter, icy kind—the kind that sent cars skidding and seeped into your bones with its chill. The kind that made you feel a little less than human.

He gulped a freezing lungful of it, and turned around.

Twin waves of regret and relief surged through him at the sight of Chan, still standing in the doorway. The other boy was watching him with dark eyes like open wounds. Snowflakes collected in his curls.

Their gazes met, and Woojin wanted to scream, wanted to cry, wanted to beg, wanted—

Wanted for Chan to laugh and say his name like it was made of sugar. Wanted to run across the snow and gather Chan in his arms, wanted to kiss him like wildfire and honey.

Of course, none of that happened. Instead, Chan straightened and, without breaking Woojin’s gaze, slowly backed into the house. The door swung shut behind him.

Woojin closed his eyes as the bones of his heart snapped, one by one.

_So maybe I wanted to give you something more…something other than the desperation._

_I’m sorry_

_it’s such a lousy story._

Woojin fucking hated clubs.

It was something about their wildness, their intensity, the ugly truth of their humanity.

That, and he was a horrible dancer.

Unfortunately, none of those perfectly valid reasons were enough to stop his friends from endlessly wheedling for him to go out with them. And on this February night, nothing was enough to stop them from dragging him to a local club.

So that was how Woojin found himself leaning against the sticky bar, eyes scanning the writhing mass of bodies with disinterest as he sipped some soju. His friends had long left him—Hyunjin and Minho off to seduce their respective conquests of the night, and Felix to inevitably get in a dance battle with a stranger.

Suddenly, an elbow knocked into his side, and Woojin swore as his soju sloshed onto the floor.

To be fair, he hadn’t really been drinking it anyway.

“Sorry, man!” yelled a voice to his right, and Woojin turned with a grimace to see a short guy with a grin that was too bright for the darkness of the club standing next to him. Judging by the red flush in the guy’s round cheeks, he was also very drunk.

“It’s…fine,” Woojin said with a sigh.

The guy grinned even wider (how the fuck that was possible, Woojin had no idea) and dipped his head in a half-assed bow. “I’m Jisung!”

Woojin tipped his head in return, more amused than annoyed by the lack of manners—as he was obviously Jisung’s hyung.

“I’m Woojin—and older than you,” he responded, raising his voice to be heard as Jay Park blasted across the club.

Jisung shrugged, swaying a little bit. “I figured. Yo, you gonna finish that?”

He gestured at Woojin’s now half-full soju, the rest long spilled onto the grimy floor. Woojin considered it for a moment before shaking his head—he fucking hated soju, there was no use pretending otherwise at this point.

Jisung smiled. “Cool, thanks!”

And with that, he plucked the cup out of Woojin’s hands and downed it before the older boy could protest. Woojin scowled—maybe he hadn’t been drinking it, but it was obvious that Jisung did _not_ need any more alcohol.

There was no way he was taking care of this random drunk kid tonight.

Thirty minutes later, Woojin had one of Jisung’s arms slung over his shoulders for support and was steering the boy’s tiny frame towards the back of the club.

God, he hated having morals.

Jisung, after downing Woojin’s soju and another random drink that he had sneaked behind Woojin’s back, had proceeded to fall over onto Woojin and beg to be taken to his “Chan-hyung.”

Woojin had no idea who this Chan guy was, but he hoped to god that Jisung hadn’t been lying when he claimed that Chan would be at the back of the club. Jisung was far from his responsibility, but…Woojin’s conscience wouldn’t let him leave this kid on his own.

They ducked behind a blackout curtain hastily pinned over a doorway (or rather, Woojin ducked and dragged Jisung with him) and came into what looked like a green room. If a green room was full of cigarette smoke and had articles of clothing strewn everywhere.

Woojin coughed and hoisted Jisung further upright as he squinted into the smoky haze.

“Jisung, where’s your Chan-hyung?” he asked.

Jisung only groaned, leaning more heavily into Woojin. The older boy rolled his eyes and walked further into the room—only to trip over a sneaker-clad foot that had appeared out of nowhere. Swearing heavily, he barely managed to catch Jisung before the younger boy hit the ground.

“Shit, who’s there?”

Woojin strode forward to find a guy blinking up at him blearily from the couch, dark eyes puffy from sleep and chocolate curls an absolute mess and—shit.

Shit.

He was really, _really_ fucking cute.

_Focus, Woojin._

Woojin cleared his throat. “Are you Chan?”

The guy sat upright, rubbing at dark circles so deep they formed bruises under his eyes. “Uh, yeah—sorry. Is the other DJ done? I’m ready for my shift now.”

Woojin furrowed his brow in confusion, before merely shoving Jisung in front of him by way of response.

Chan’s eyes widened immediately. “Jisung! Shit, is he alright?”

He stood up and took Jisung from Woojin’s arms as he spoke, carefully arranging the now-unconscious boy on the couch. The gentleness in his actions betrayed the worry underlying his tone.

Woojin nodded. “He’s fine, just way too drunk.”

Chan groaned, running a hand through his hair. “Fuck, he always does this. I’m so sorry about him—thank you for bringing him to me. I’ll let him sleep it off a bit here.”

He turned his gaze back on Woojin, eyes suddenly piercing as they focused on him. “What did you say your name was?”

Woojin had to try very hard not to gulp under the intensity of Chan’s gaze. “Um—I’m Woojin.”

Chan nodded, a smile creeping onto his lips. “Good to meet you, Woojin.”

Woojin forced a smile in response, and was about to make an excuse to leave—when yet another person stumbled into the room with a musical laugh.

 _Fuck_. Woojin recognized that laugh.

He turned in resignation to see that—yes, a very drunk Lee Minho had managed to stumble into the backstage of the club. Woojin pinched the bridge of his nose, willing patience. It was looking more and more likely that his night would be spent taking care of his drunk friends.

“Oh hello, Woojinnie. Having a party without me?” Minho slurred, eyes jumping from him to Chan before landing on Jisung. He swallowed hard, smile dropping from his face as he stared at Jisung—who was sprawled rather unattractively on the couch.

“Fuck…he’s so cute,” Minho whispered. “What the fuck is he so cute for?”

Chan caught Woojin’s eyes, a smirk playing at the corners of his lips. Woojin felt himself grin in response, almost without meaning to. They both snickered quietly as Minho continued to stand frozen, just staring at Jisung.

“Looks like love is in the air,” Chan whispered, waggling his eyebrows.

Woojin laughed out loud and punched him on the arm without thinking about it. “That was so fucking cheesy, shut up.”

He retracted his arm immediately, embarrassment coloring his cheeks. What kind of weirdo just went around punching strangers? But Chan didn’t turn away or ignore it—he just grinned up at Woojin with a surprised kind of light in his eyes.

That was when Woojin realized that Chan was pretty fucking gorgeous.

And that was how it begun.

_Let me do it right for once,_

_for the record, let me make a thing of cream and stars that becomes,_

_you know the story,_

_simply heaven._

“And that’s when I told her: ma’am, if Jesus Christ was a Korean college student, you’d be looking at him!”

The table exploded in laughter as Jisung finished his story, earning them several dirty looks from the rest of the customers in the tiny Korean barbecue restaurant. But Chan and Jisung, apparently, were friends with the owners and had been coming there “since the beginning of time” so there was nothing to worry about.

Jisung sat back with a self-satisfied grin as the laughter died down, leaning into Minho’s side when the older boy dropped an arm around his shoulders. Woojin couldn’t help but smile at the sight of the new couple, all starry-eyed and infatuated with each other.

He turned to watch Chan’s laughter trail into giggles beside him, the other boy meeting Woojin’s gaze with a grin. Tempted to curl an arm around Chan’s shoulders just as Minho and Jisung had done, Woojin restrained himself to a mere smile directed at the other boy.

“I think we made a huge mistake by letting them date each other,” Chan whispered loudly, with a jerk of his chin in the couple’s direction.

Woojin nodded back with mock-seriousness. “The world may never recover from the combined amount of chaos they hold.”

“Hey, if you had never hauled my drunk ass over to Chan in that club, then _you two_ never would have met,” Jisung pointed out indignantly, wagging a piece of tteokbokki at them with his chopsticks for emphasis.

Woojin steadfastly kept his eyes far away from Chan’s face as he felt a blush creep up his cheeks.

“Well, that would have been a tragedy, wouldn’t it?” Chan teased, nudging Woojin’s side.

The older boy forced a laugh—but he knew it was true. Every moment spent with Chan was like discovering a place both new and strangely familiar to him. Woojin wouldn’t trade a single one for the world.

Minho grinned at him lazily, Woojin’s reaction not going unnoticed by the other boy. They’d been best friends since getting randomly put together as roommates in their freshman year of college—so there was very little Woojin could hide from him now.

“Well, Sungie’s been holding back a yawn for the last half hour, so we’re going to take off,” Minho drawled, before silencing Jisung’s protest of “Hey, I have _not_ —” with a well-timed kiss.

In a flurry of goodbyes and misplaced gloves, the two younger boys were gone in a matter of minutes—leaving Chan and Woojin to look at each other in silence for a long moment. Until…

“Motherfuckers left us with the check, didn’t they?” Chan said with a resigned sigh.

Woojin shook his head. “Typical Minho.”

“Typical Jisung,” Chan countered, before smiling. “Wow, they are literally the same person. It’s terrifying.”

Woojin laughed in agreement, sliding the check towards himself and signing it before Chan could reach it. The younger protested vehemently once he realized, but Woojin just waved him off with the argument that Woojin was technically his hyung…if only by a few months.

Chan was still pouting as they walked outside, and it was so unbelievably cute that Woojin—

Woojin just couldn’t quite take it anymore.

How Chan was unfailingly kind, and how his dimples only appeared when he was truly happy, and how his pink lips pushed out in a pout when he was put off.

How he took Woojin’s breath away with magic in his every movement.

“I’m paying next time, you know—” Chan started, but never got to finish his sentence.

Instead, Woojin silenced him with a kiss.

It was a barely-there brush of lips, before Woojin lost his courage and pulled away—unable to breathe, unable to move, unable to do anything but stare at Chan’s face and wait for his reaction.

Chan was looking at him, electric eyes pinning Woojin in place as they so often did. For one long, nerve-wracking moment, neither of them spoke.

Then Chan stepped closer to Woojin, tipped his head up the slightest bit, and said, “Give me a real kiss this time.”

And who was Woojin to refuse this gorgeous boy, this boy who laughed like sunlight and felt like home?

So he did exactly that: pressed Chan up against the wall of the tiny Korean barbecue restaurant, and gorged on the honey of Chan’s lips until they were both breathless and flushed, grasping each other for support as the world spun on—and as they stood still in time.

Chan leaned his forehead on Woojin’s, breath fanning across their lips.

“Wow,” he whispered, and Woojin bit back a smile.

_There were some nice parts, sure, all lemondrop and mellonball, laughing in silk pajamas_

_and the grains of sugar_

_on the_

_toast._

“You know, there’s something about you.”

Woojin looked down to where Chan was sprawled in the grass, his head resting in Woojin’s lap. Chan’s eyes were closed, and he looked utterly content—a sight so unusual that something in Woojin’s chest ached a bit. He smiled and brushed a gentle hand through Chan’s mess of curls.

The sun washed their figures in golden light.

“Something about me?” he questioned.

Chan hummed in affirmation, eyes still closed but lips stretching into a lazy smile as he formed the words on his tongue. “Something…peaceful.”

Woojin’s breath caught in his throat. There was silence for a moment before he remembered himself and teased back, “You can’t come up with something more eloquent, Mr. Lyricist?”

Chan’s eyes popped open and he grinned up at Woojin. “Only if you’re interested in compensating me for my talent.”

Woojin laughed outright, surprised and hopelessly fond at the same time. Chan was just like that—endlessly unpredictable, but unbearably sweet. It made Woojin wonder, sometimes, what good he’d done in a past life to deserve this boy.

To deserve this moment, lying in a field with Chan as sunlight soaked them both.

“How does a kiss sound, then?” he whispered in response. “Is that enough for the great Bang Chan?”

Chan twisted and sat upright, grinning widely under a tangle of curls. “From you? More than enough.”

And with that, he leaned forward to capture Woojin’s lips with his. Woojin cupped Chan’s head with one hand and trailed the other down his side, kissing the other boy back with slow intent.

Chan tasted like honeyed sunlight.

It was terrifyingly addictive.

_Are you there, sweetheart? Do you know me?_

_Is this microphone live?_

Chan loved it when Woojin sang for him.

He loved it even more when the older boy brought out a beat-up guitar from his college days, the wood covered in faded stickers and the occasional gay pride logo. He always watched with rapt attention as Woojin re-acquainted himself with the strings, carefully tuning them into place.

It was one of Chan’s favorite things to lie across the bed and watch Woojin strum softly at night, humming slow songs that were half-made up. Whenever Woojin sensed that Chan was hurting, or hopeless, or more exhausted than usual…he brought out the guitar.

And that was also how Woojin made it up to him after their first fight.

“Are you dating anyone, Woojinnie? Any girls?”

His mother’s voice, more playful than he was ever used to hearing, crackled through the phone microphone loud enough to be heard through the whole room. Woojin watched as Chan’s hands stilled before curling tightly around the notebook he had been scribbling melodies in a second ago.

Woojin closed his eyes, swallowing hard. “No, eomma. No girls.”

He managed to make an excuse about needing to do a load of laundry before fumbling to end the call. Phone now silent in his hands, Woojin sat very still in the following silence. He was terrified to look over at Chan.

“You…you still haven’t told her?” came the quiet voice at last.

Woojin drew in a deep breath. “No. She wouldn’t understand.”

He risked a glance over at Chan, who was now staring hard at his notebook. Woojin could tell he was choosing his words very carefully—and that pissed him off, a little bit. He knew how much Chan pretended, how often he forced himself to be diplomatic in order to keep everyone happy.

Woojin hated it when he acted like that—when Chan wasn’t entirely himself. It made Woojin feel like he was just another player in the games that Chan carefully constructed in order to keep everything from tumbling down.

He knew it was kind of irrational—and probably something he should talk to Chan about.

“I know your parents don’t acknowledge this part of you, but I thought that was something you were working on with them,” Chan said at last, before looking up to focus on Woojin with those damned eyes.

Woojin sighed. “I am, okay? It’s not like it happens overnight—and that wasn’t a good time to get in a fight with her, either.”

Chan’s hands tightened around the notebook. “Jin, it’s been six months. Are you ever going to tell your parents that I exist?”

“It’s not like I’m happy to keep you a secret,” Woojin snapped. “Is that what you’re suggesting?”

“Of course not,” Chan said exasperatedly. He looked away, and there was a long moment of silence before Chan slapped his notebook down on the table and turned to face Woojin with sudden intensity.

“Jin, it’s just—they control so much of your life. I know you hate your finance job, but you do it because it makes them proud. I know you don’t want to live back in Busan with them, but you reconsider it every time they guilt you about moving to Seoul. When do you stop doing everything to please them?”

Chan’s words were like a physical slap. Woojin closed his eyes, jaw clenching tightly as he worked to keep his composure. Chan _knew_ how sensitive of a topic Woojin’s family was, and yet here he was…passing his judgement.

If Woojin had been a little less angry, he might have noticed how much darker the circles under Chan’s eyes were. Maybe then he would have ended it there—pronounced them both too tired to continue the conversation, and kissed the rigidness away from Chan’s mouth.

He didn’t do any of those things.

“You don’t know my family, Chan,” Woojin bit out. “It’s easy for you to say all these things, but you don’t know them.”

“I don’t know them because I’ve never met them!” Chan burst out. “I’ve dated you for six months, and I don’t even know your mother’s first name.”

“It’s none of your business—” Woojin began, only to be interrupted by Chan a moment later.

“None of my business?” Chan echoed, coiling away from Woojin with hurt shining in his eyes. “Wow, you’re right. Your family is none of my business. It’s not like I’m your boyfriend or anything.”

“ _Chan_ —” Woojin warned, tone strained.

And just like that, the rubber band that had been stretching between them for months finally snapped.

That was when the shouting began.

Woojin stormed out after half an hour, slamming the door shut behind him and then leaning against it as he struggled to catch his breath. He stood there for a long time, listening as Chan sobbed inside. His heart shattered further with every second, but he didn’t open the door.

He just stood there and listened.

Woojin showed up the next morning on Chan’s doorstep with his old guitar in one hand and a coffee in the other. He knocked until Chan finally opened the door, the younger boy peering out at him with wet eyes and hopeless curls. Chan didn’t smile.

Woojin pressed the coffee into Chan’s hands, led the worryingly pliant younger boy back into bed, and tucked him in with careful hands before positioning himself at the end of the bed. Woojin strummed the guitar experimentally a few times, then slowly pieced together a melody…and he watched Chan listen to the song that poured forth from Woojin’s lips.

Woojin wasn’t quite sure what came out of his mouth, but he knew it was a song about forgiveness. A song about the weight of a human heart and the stark grief of two separated souls. It was the best he could do.

Chan watched him all throughout with those dark eyes, stray tears trickling down his cheeks. The morning sun streamed through the window and turned Chan’s skin into gold.

He was achingly beautiful, and Woojin sang to him until his throat was raw.

_Hello darling, sorry about that._

_Sorry about the bony elbows, sorry we lived here, sorry about the scene at the bottom of the stairwell_

_and how I ruined everything by saying it out loud._

There were times when Chan shut himself away.

Locked himself in the studio or his bedroom for hours where he wouldn’t eat, barely slept, and didn’t respond to any of Woojin’s worried calls or texts. Just—completely isolated himself.

The first time it happened, Woojin had been sick with worry. But he’d immediately forgiven Chan when the boy emerged two full days later—the stark vulnerability in Chan’s eyes had just shattered all of his anger. So he’d just gathered Chan’s shaking frame into his arms, and listened to Chan’s whispered apologies.

The second time it happened, Woojin managed to guilt Chan into at least accepting cartons of takeaway every few hours—the younger boy refusing to meet his eyes each time. Woojin hadn’t been quite as worried, but he was sure neither of them had slept for the three days Chan was trapped inside his own mind.

The third time it happened, Woojin was angry.

He knew that Chan didn’t isolate himself to hurt Woojin on purpose, but Woojin was also done with letting it go on. Never mind the fact that it was incredibly unhealthy—this time, Chan had also shut himself away on a day when he knew Woojin needed him.

A day when Woojin was scheduled to have dinner with his brother.

Chan knew how nervous Woojin got about seeing his brother—his perfect older brother, with his perfect wife and perfect job who never disappointed their parents. Woojin had spent his life living in his brother’s shadow, falling short each time—a fact his brother never failed to remind him of.

But it made their parents happy for Woojin and his brother to have dinner every so often. And just like so many other things in his life, Woojin did it for that.

So it was with his brother’s scornful words from dinner echoing in his ears, that Woojin opened the door into an empty house that night.

_You still haven’t got promoted at the company?_

_When do you think eomma and appa will figure out you’re a faggot, huh?_

_Should just tell them myself—_

Anyways.

Jaw clenched tight, Woojin walked through the house—the house that he and Chan had bought together, and filled with houseplants and untidiness and laughter—and found every room empty.

Chan should have been home from work hours ago.

Woojin drew in a long breath, and typed out a short text to Chan.

_You on your way home?_

Four hours later, Chan still hadn’t replied—and Woojin was drunk.

He had figured, by now, that Chan was off on another one of his self-hating isolation stunts. And when your family will always see you as less than enough, and your boyfriend hates himself and the world enough to lock himself up for days on end…there wasn’t much else to do besides get drunk.

“Chan, it’s me. Your boyfriend. Yeah, that’s right—you have a boyfriend. Figured you forgot since you’re probably too busy getting off your own self-hatred to remember anyone else.”

Woojin paused, the voicemail message recorder still running.

Jagged words teetered on his tongue—words he knew would hurt Chan even more than what he had just said. Outside, rain lashed the streets of Seoul.

Woojin opened his mouth and let the words spill forth.

“You’re fucking selfish, you know that? Do you ever think about how worried I get when you do this? How I don’t sleep when you’re not here? How maybe I need you too, sometimes?” Woojin paused, a sob building in his throat out of nowhere. “Maybe my parents are right…maybe I should just go home. What do I have here, if I don’t have you?”

The rain battered their home.

“Just fuck off, Chan.”

Woojin pressed the end call button and let himself spiral into blissful, dark oblivion.

“What the hell is this?”

Woojin’s eyes flew open at the loud voice, before he immediately closed them with a wince. The sunlight set his skin on fire as his head pounded relentlessly.

Swallowing hard around the taste of death in his mouth, Woojin cracked open one eye to see—a blurry Chan, features contorted in hurt and anger.

Fuck.

Woojin was way too hungover for this.

“Whaddya want?” he managed to get out, nausea churning in his stomach.

“Tell me what the hell this voicemail is really about,” Chan growled.

Woojin furrowed his brow and focused on sitting upright instead of answering Chan. He had just barely managed to lift himself to a sitting position without vomiting everywhere when Chan shook his phone in Woojin’s face, a voicemail lit up on the screen.

A voicemail from him.

Woojin groaned, massaging his temple with one hand. He fucking remembered that voicemail, and he had been right from the start—he was way too hungover for this discussion. So Woojin just brushed the phone aside and gingerly lifted himself to standing.

He made his way into the kitchen slowly, Chan following behind him with a scowl. Woojin chose not to comment on how much deeper Chan’s eye circles had gotten, and instead focused on making coffee. It wasn’t like Woojin looked great at the moment either.

It wasn’t until Woojin had managed to pour himself a cup of coffee, sit down at the kitchen table, and take one sip that Chan spoke again. The other boy had taken a seat across from Woojin, his eyes never leaving the other’s movements.

“So?” came the question at last.

Woojin held back a sigh. “So what, Chan?”

Chan gritted his teeth. “You know what. Why did you send this voicemail? Where did all that come from?”

Woojin shrugged. He knew he was being petty, but maybe he didn’t want to be mature for once. Maybe he didn’t want to be the one that had it all together anymore.

“You don’t know how I felt listening to that,” Chan said, this time in a softer tone, one that dripped with hurt. “I know seeing your brother is rough for you, but don’t you think that was a little much?”

“A little much?” Woojin smiled wryly, before taking a long swig of coffee as his sobriety came back to him. “Last night…whatever. I’ll get over the shit with my brother, just like I always do. That’s not the point.”

“What is the point?” Chan’s voice was quiet. Exhausted. 

Woojin looked up to see Chan staring at his hands. He suddenly looked very small, sitting there at their kitchen table in the morning light—and Woojin almost forgave him right in that moment. Almost passed his mug of coffee over to Chan so they could share, just like they always did on slow mornings. Almost took Chan’s hands in his and kissed an apology into his knuckles.

Instead, he let the words that had been building up inside him for months fall from his tongue at last.

“We’re both so fucked up, Chan,” he said tiredly. “You lock yourself up for days and my parents don’t even know who I am. Neither of us knows how to be an adult, how to do any of this...and sometimes I think we just make each other worse.”

He paused.

It was raining again, the dull light paling their features.

“The point is that I don’t think this is working.”

His words hung in the air above the table, ugly and scarred. Outside, the rain turned into sleet.

Chan got up and walked away from the table.

_Leave the gun on the table, this has nothing to do with happiness._

_Let’s jump ahead to the moment of epiphany,_ _as the camera pans to where the action is,_

_and it all falls into frame, close enough to see_

_the blue rings of my eyes as I say_

_something ugly._

Woojin opened his eyes.

Snow was falling in blinding sheets of white now, obscuring the view of the house Chan had disappeared into. The house that they had bought together all those months ago. The house they had danced in, laughed in, cried in, made love in.

Their home—until now.

Woojin took a deep, shuddering breath. After all that had happened, he could only feel a horrifying sort of numbness. It was this absolute emptiness, more than anything else, that finally allowed him to turn his back on the house.

A house in which he had hopelessly, recklessly, catastrophically loved Chan.

Snow spiraled downwards. The winter wind sobbed.

And Woojin walked away from Chan.

_Here is the repeated image of the lover destroyed._

_Crossed out._


End file.
